Random set of the day: Gahlok Va
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 8550 Gahlok Va, released during 2002. It's one of 27 Bionicle sets produced that year. It contains 26 pieces, and its retail price was US$2.99/£1.99.
It's owned by 1,735 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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26 comments on this article
This is the only one of the Bohrok Va that I have (I found it at a discount grocery store). I think they're kind of cute.
It's been 2 months since anything bonkle. My lore batteries are very drained. Therefoar... I need moar loar!
If the USS Enterprise was a Transformer?
Yarr har fiddle dee dee
Being a pirate is alright to be
Do what you want cause a pirate is free
Gahlok is a pirate!
¿A donde Gahlok va?
The Bohrok were a race of bug like machines that lived in the maintenance tunnels of the Great Spirit Robot. For most of their time, they would remain in slumber, but would awake when it was time to leave a planet. When Mata Nui decided he was done studying a world, the Bohrok would emerge from his pores and destroy the fake islands he used as camouflage, allowing him to rise more easily.
But the Bohrok could easily be misused. A month into their quest to awaken Mata Nui, the Toa Mata (seemingly) defeated the evil Makuta Teridax in combat. Before they could rest, however, Teridax sent a sonic signal to the Bohrok hordes. He imitated Mata Nui's voice, and informed them it was time to leave the world.
The Bohrok emerged to destroy the island above, unaware that the Matoran villagers still lived there. The Toa and Matoran engaged in war with the Bohrok, attempting to find their nest and capture their Queens to force them into sleep once more.
Bohrok had quite the interesting biology. They were completely mechanical, save for their "brain." A purely organic mask, known as a Krana, was placed under each Bohrok's face plate. These Krana served as a psychic hive mind between all members of the swarm. Krana could even be launched from the Bohrok willingly and latch onto the face of other creatures, assimilating them into the horde.
There was just one small problem with this attack method. The Bohrok require Krana to function. To combat this, the Bohrok-Va were created. Va are a smaller, rarer, and far weaker breed of Bohrok, incapable of any true destruction on their own. However, Va can act independently of Krana and can operate even without the Queens' guidance. If a Bohrok ever loses its Krana, or a new Krana power is needed to deal with a problem, the Bohrok-Va can scurry up to them and replace it.
Gahlok-Va are the Bohrok-Va of Water. They assist the Gahlok swarm in mass-flooding portions of the island. A odd bit of trivia I learned from Biosector just now, apparently the Gahlok-Va are noted for having sluggish movements, yet are near impossible to tire.
@Brickbuilder0937 said: "I think they're kind of cute."
Most of the bonkle little helper dudes (and dudettes) were cute, whether they were heroic or villainous.
I _think_ I got one of these in my massive Kay-Bee haul, but the vast majority (over 100) of them were Nuhvok Va. And the black friction axle-pins are individually currently listing for about 3x what I paid for each set.
I make that sound too!
@PurpleDave said:
"And the black friction axle-pins are individually currently listing for about 3x what I paid for each set."
Funny. Over here we can buy them in bulk from them who must not be named, 200 each for 4.95 Euros, and in nine different colours too. Apart from blue and black, of course, in other useful ones like white, red, tan, lbg, dbg, and even exotic ones like olive green or dark green.
No need to pay extortionate prices for the original in that case, since these parts show zero difference during normal use between LEGO and other manufacturers. After all, it's just pins.
Eh, this one gave us purple Krana, so not too bad. The Bohrok Va weren't Turaga level good, but decent enough.
@MeisterDad said:
"If the USS Enterprise was a Transformer?"
I prefer the anime version https://azur-lane.fandom.com/wiki/Enterprise
@GSR_MataNui said:
"The Bohrok were a race of bug like machines..... "
Are those lores from somewhere (Bionicle wiki or somthing) or you make them up?
@Yooha said:
" @GSR_MataNui said:
"The Bohrok were a race of bug like machines..... "
Are those lores from somewhere (Bionicle wiki or somthing) or you make them up?"
"Nope, they're all real! Probably worth a Google..."
@Yooha said:
" @GSR_MataNui said:
"The Bohrok were a race of bug like machines..... "
Are those lores from somewhere (Bionicle wiki or somthing) or you make them up?"
Oh man, Bionicle lore is vast and complicated and there are at least a couple sites dedicated to keeping track of it all. It is a deep dive if you want to go looking
The last Bohrok Va I got. It's slightly taller than the rest because of the connector in the legs. And it has neck articulation!
I was lucky enough to get a Krana Bo variant with it, which was the only one I didn't have one of back then.
These Bohrok Va are so cute!
Fun fact: besides the Exo-Toa, Vahki, Krahli, Maxilos and the two Vahki combiner models the Bohrok Va are one of the few actually fully robotic Bionicle retail sets. The rest are all biomechanical, unless I'm forgetting one somewhere.
Unless you also count a Krana-less Bohrok or a Kraata-less Rahkshi. Or a Makuta body?
The rest are all biomechanical to various extents.
If I remember rightly, Gahlok Va was my third Bohrok Va, several years after they were released. I honestly didn't even know the Va *existed* back in 2002, I'm not sure if they had a more limited release in the UK in general or I just missed them because that was the year I was more excited by Attack of the Clones than by Bionicle. I eventually got my first two of them, Pahrak Va and Lehvak Va, cheap in a discount toy shop in... I want to say 2004?
It was only a couple more years later that I started catching up on all the sets I'd missed previous years. The Bohrok Va weren't exactly high priority for me at first, but when I got this one here off eBay, I suppose I got... 'hooked' on getting more of them...
No mention yet of the different shades of purple, that It's Krana came in?
Oddly mine came with 2 Krana Vu, unfortunately both the same shade....
...in actual fact the one I got off eBay wasn't quite accurately complete, had a 4-angled connector for one of its arms instead of the correct 5-angled one. I eventually replaced it with the right part, but I actually kinda liked the uniqueness of my one having that slight difference in the angle of its arm, so I kept it that way for a while ^^
@Gatanui said:
" @Yooha said:
" @GSR_MataNui said:
"The Bohrok were a race of bug like machines..... "
Are those lores from somewhere (Bionicle wiki or somthing) or you make them up?"
"Nope, they're all real! Probably worth a Google...""
A few sights I'd recommend:
Biosector01 - The BIONICLE fandom wiki, keeping track of all canon info form the franchise
Wall of History - Every single piece of BIONICLE media organized in best read/watch order
Biomedia Project - An archive of all official BIONICLE media, categorized by year, type, ect
The Great Archives - A sight that keeps track of every trivia fact given out by both the books and their writer Greg Farsthey, to let you easily compare points of contention about the lore
Mask of Destiny - A fan sight that keeps track of other BIONICLE fan sight, allowing you to easily find both official and fanmade content for the franchise
@AustinPowers:
I mean, I could probably find someone who would sell me bootleg CDs and DVDs, if I was into that sorta thing…
@Atuin:
I got a lot of grief when I announced that 20 years ago, but I’m guessing the fact that it was blacklight-provable went a long way to convincing the naysayers. I think that’s how I actually discovered there were two shades in the first place. I’ve recently been told there may be another Krana that has two distinct shades (yellow?), but I haven’t seen any proof. I checked my complete set, but have no idea where my spares ended up, and the eight examples of whatever color I was told don’t show any variance.
@PurpleDave : there's nothing bootleg about these pieces since they're not protected designs.
Or do you call every non-Energizer AA or AAA battery a bootleg too?
Or any other product by an alternative manufacturer where the original patent has expired?
A bootleg CD or DVD is something different entirely. Talk about apples and oranges.
A set of the day I actually own, nice.
@PurpleDave said:
" @AustinPowers:
I mean, I could probably find someone who would sell me bootleg CDs and DVDs, if I was into that sorta thing…
@Atuin:
I got a lot of grief when I announced that 20 years ago, but I’m guessing the fact that it was blacklight-provable went a long way to convincing the naysayers. I think that’s how I actually discovered there were two shades in the first place. I’ve recently been told there may be another Krana that has two distinct shades (yellow?), but I haven’t seen any proof. I checked my complete set, but have no idea where my spares ended up, and the eight examples of whatever color I was told don’t show any variance."
Huh, never heard about other colors before... I would check mine, but somehow I barely got any yellow or purple Krana outside the Bohrok Va sets themselves. Despite the fact I got quite some Krana mask packs -.-
Yellow and purple were my favorite Krana colors as well, mostly because they were such a rare occurence in early Bionicle. I wished there were teal Krana too :D
@AustinPowers:
Get behind me, 71013-4! The last time you said some off-brand sets didn’t violate any laws, I couldn’t keep track of how many recent and very-much-still-copyrighted parts they were using.
@Atuin:
I was the first, and for a very long time only person to collect the entire run of Krana, including the sterling silver and white metal chase pieces, both sets of purple, and unreleased chromed and light-grey ABS octets. If it turns out there is a second shade of another color, and I can’t pull the second set from my spares, then I may have to give up that claim. There’s at least one other person out there who has matched my achievement, and I don’t know if they have any additional variants like the two shades of purple.
@PurpleDave : I wasn't talking about sets, but about that specific pin/conn.bush, which, to my knowledge, isn't a protected part any longer, just like most others by the way. It's just a small subsection of parts that are still protected, and when you look at the portfolios of any respected alternative manufacturer, you will find that they don't use copies of protected parts at all. Indeed those alternatives I know have huge portfolios of their own part designs, many of which LEGO doesn't even have any equivalent to.
You always try to insinuate that all alternatives are in some way illegal, or shady, or in other ways negative, while in reality, building with both LEGO and alternatives is just expanding our hobby in a positive way. Narrowmindedness doesn't suit creative people.
After all, the days where alternatives mostly meant stuff like Lepin are long gone.
Oh, and food for thought: do you truly believe that for example CBS would have entrusted BlueBrixx with the official Star Trek license if they had any doubts as to their legality?